It must be established and made clear who is responsible for overseeing policing

The first woman Garda commissioner has walked or been driven from the field of play. Shame! I have no idea if she was a good or a poor commissioner. I don’t know if she was a reformer who tried to implement better practice and management, but, as she wrote in her retirement announcement, was so busy fire-fighting that she couldn’t get the job done.

I do know that losing two commissioners in a short few years is a big deal for the Garda and for the country.

It is important to state that the core problem was not Nóirín O Sullivan, and that the solution should not be reduced to a simplistic debate about an outsider and the salary that the job will attract in the future.

It might be helpful, however, to name the source that was most proactive in resisting necessary and overdue change, and whose influence should now and in the future be reduced. And that is the Department of Justice.

[Shell to Sea] A Texan company NextDecade has plans to bring LNG from Texas to the Port of Cork. John Mullens, Chairman of the Port of Cork (formerly CEO of Bord Gais) had a interesting interview on RTE today. In the interview he stated how there is no reason why Irish interconnectors couldn't be reversed to send gas from Ireland to England or Europe. That this was a possibility was repeatedly denied by the Dept of Energy and Shell for many years in relation to Corrib.

Question RTE: "If they (LNG suppliers NextDecade) link up to the Irish Gas Network, in effect they have access to the entire European network, is that correct, to sell their product on?"

John Mullens: "That's absolutely correct, there is no reason why one of the interconnectors coming in to Loughshinny could not be reversed and the combination of Corrib and this new gas source actually could supply Lancashire and Yorkshire and nearer mainland .. em ..em .. nearer Britain"

IT was so easy for sacked Sunday Times columnist Kevin Myers to mock and defame the Corrib Gas protestors in article after article over the years. From his perch in his eyrie somewhere in the rolling hills of Kildare, he picked on the protestors again and again without properly informing himself of the protest’s deep community nuances, cynically dismissing genuine fears as ‘pagan voodoo of the fir-bolgs’.

Well, the Shell spin machine had ensured that official Ireland turned its back on this community, whose heritage and pristine environment is among the last bastions of a culture untainted by much of the consumerism and globalist capitalism that thousands of holiday makers who indulge in the area crave to escape.

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Blast from the Past

Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe’s first contact with a TD came about because he saw Clare Daly TD on ‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’ talking about policing of Corrib Gas protests, writes William Hederman

The repercussions for Garda whistleblowers Maurice McCabe and John Wilson will be familiar to others who have publicly embarrassed An Garda Síochána. They were clearly acting in the public interest, but their revelations brought the force into disrepute, and the two men suffered as a result. Revenge was exacted – not only by colleagues, but also by way of public denunciation by the Garda Commissioner (“disgusting”), the Minister for Justice (“not co-operating”) and by various other parties loyal to the force.

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"The Corrib licence was granted under an older licensing system. No royalties are payable, just corporation tax of 25pc less any allowances that the companies enjoy. That system was completely flawed and yet again we find that there are only marginal returns for taxpayers from new gas finds."